Mercenary's Star

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Mercenary's Star Page 25

by William H. Keith


  The fire cut off Grayson's view of the struggle over Olssen's ‘Mech, but it also cut the Marauder off from the rest of the Kurita column. He shifted his aim to the Marauder's back, aiming for the tender joint where the hull joined the leg train assembly, just below the twin power booster jet turbines on the back of the machine's hull.

  He snapped off three shots with his laser, scoring close-range hits each time. Metal fragments scattered through the air, and the Marauder seemed to sag on its left leg as it turned to face him. One PPC flared...and missed. Grayson fired his laser and struck the heavier enemy ‘Mech in one arm. The other Marauder PPC fired, and Grayson's Hawk rocked as the bolt of high-energy particles smashed its leg and melted armor. Red warning lights flared. Grayson's ‘Mech was overheating from the combination of enemy hits and his free use of his own ‘Mech's laser.

  He fired once more, sending his last pair of SRMs arrowing into the Marauder's hull, and following with a bolt of coherent light snapping into the gash they left. The Marauder seemed to hesitate, then spun and plunged into the dying flames alongside the charred and twisted wreckage of the Phoenix Hawk. The other two ‘Mechs had already retreated up the path, and their leader lumbered after them.

  Grayson barked orders. "Everybody! All units! Keep moving, double time! I don't know if they've had enough or are just regrouping. But we're not going to hang around here to find out!"

  The rebel column pressed on deeper into the jungle, heading north. On the trail behind them, they left two monuments to their close brush with the Kurita trap, the burned-out hulk of the Phoenix Hawk and the smashed and gutted corpse of Harriman Olssen's LoggerMech.

  The skirmish could not really be called a victory, but it could become one if they could escape. Yet the cost of victory would be dear. Harriman Olssen had been only 15 standard years old and Grayson's personal responsibility. Worse, Grayson had liked him.

  * * * *

  Govemor-Nagumo studied the reports, his scowl darker than ever. Colonel Kevlavic stood at attention, grease acquired from some minor but urgent repairs to his Marauder still fouling his usually immaculate uniform.

  "Kevlavic, this is getting to be a habit with you. A very dangerous habit. They got away from you again!"

  "Yes, sir." Kevlavic made no attempt to shift the blame. "Sir, I formally request replacement...and court-martial."

  The request surprised Nagumo, but he held his reaction to a quick glance up from the printouts he was holding. "Court-martial? Why?"

  "I...General, I don't know what else I could have done. I had limited intelligence... no clear idea of how many ‘Mechs the enemy had close at hand. I had only four ‘Mechs, with the rest deployed to guard the other approaches to Fox Island. We were set to trap the enemy when the satellite reconnaissance photos indicated that they weren't approaching the Island, but were turning off toward the north, into the deep jungle. I decided to reconnoiter in force with my lance. We blundered into a strong rear guard that was totally unexpected.

  "Or maybe..." He shrugged, breaking his military demeanor with a gesture of shoulders and hands. "Maybe I only ran into stragglers, but I'm quite sure that the ‘Mech I faced was that of the mercenary leader himself, the one the prisoners identified as Grayson Carlyle. It was a Shadow Hawk certainly, and we know of only one ‘Mech of that type with the rebel forces.

  "General, I had no way of knowing whether I faced one Shadow Hawk and a couple of stragglers, or the entire rebel column, turned to ambush their pursuers. After we destroyed one of the AgroMechs, I thought we might at least capture the rebel leader, but the enemy defense was unexpectedly determined. When one of my lance's ‘Mechs was destroyed, and other of my ‘Mechs had taken severe damage, I realized the entire lance was in danger, especially if there were more ‘Mechs that I hadn't seen coming around my flanks. I ordered the retreat.

  "I take full responsibility for the defeat and for my actions, General. But I swear...by heaven, by hell, by all the black holes of space...that I made the best command decisional could. If I were faced again with the same situation, I couldn't make any of those decisions any differently."

  Nagumo leaned forward over his desk, his fingers steepled before him. "Actually, Colonel, I tend to agree with you."

  "S-sir?"

  "If you had blundered ahead, not knowing what was waiting for you in the jungle, and lost your entire lance...yes, I probably would have had you shot...and without the benefit of a court-martial! As it was, we'll have to make the best of it. Your request for court-martial is denied. Don't worry. My report of this action will fully support your own."

  "Thank you, General."

  "Don't thank me yet! We still have to find some way of salvaging this...this debacle, before our Duke arrives.”

  “We haven't much time."

  "We have no time! Not if we have to comb the jungle for these ragtag rebels and their mercenary friends!"

  "We might determine where they are going and make a Drop-Ship strike."

  Nagumo's eyes strayed to the full-color map that filled the wall of his office opposite the window. It was a composite map assembled from dozens of satellite photos of the Azure Sea and jungle areas taken at different times to create a cloud-free mosaic. It showed considerable detail, but could not penetrate the blue-green opacity of the jungle vegetation.

  Laid over the map was a network of dotted lines that marked the locations of known and probable jungle trails learned from documents seized at the Fox Island complex. His people were still sifting through the mounds of papers and computer files taken in the raid. With equal diligence. Dr. Vlade and his assistants were still sifting through the minds of prisoners taken on Fox Island. More trails, caches, or hidden bases might yet emerge in days or weeks to come. There was no way to predict what future intelligence discoveries would emerge. For now, though, the jungle remained impenetrable and closed.

  "There are thousands of hectares of jungle out there, and an army of BattleMechs could be swallowed up without a trace." Nagumo's eyes narrowed. "The mercenaries are our biggest threat."

  "Their training has obviously stiffened the main rebel army."

  "More, it's given them a rallying point. I wonder..."

  "My Lord?"

  "I was wondering about their ship, the one that ran the blockade and brought the mercenaries to Verthandi in the first place.”

  “It was destroyed in a storm."

  "Was it? Our air patrols reported debris on the beach at Hunter's Cape, but not enough to indicate the wreckage of something as massive as a DropShip,"

  "Our orbital stations would have detected a spacecraft lifting off, even in a storm. Certainly nothing lifted above atmosphere."

  "I know." Nagumo closed his eyes, sighed. He was so tired. "Our strike at Fox Island should have finished them...rebels and mercenaries. No BattleMech unit can exist without its support units...Techs, ‘Mech repair cradles, heavy machinery, cranes, spare parts...Without all that, those ‘Mechs will begin to fall apart within days. They'll run out of ammunition after the first skirmish. They'll overheat and shut down with the first long, hard march. That is why your failure to close with the enemy column in the jungle is not so serious as it might have been. Without their precious Fox Island, the enemy is dead! But I wonder. If the DropShip survived..."

  "But how, my Lord? They didn't lift off and it no longer sits at Hunter's Cape."

  "Never mind, Colonel. Never mind. If their DropShip survives, it will have much equipment to replace what they've lost at Fox Island. But they can never replace the Techs and other trained personnel we took there, or the supplies. What's more, by capturing the members of the Revolutionary Council, we have broken the back of the rebellion. All that remains are bands of ragged bandits cowering in the jungle."

  "Your orders then, my Lord?"

  "We'll search for them and for that ship, just in case. If the ship survives, that's where the mercs will be, tied to it by lines of supply and the need for maintenance and repair. If the ship was destroyed, th
ey must come to us...eventually. Even if the ship survived somehow, they must still come to us...eventually. Our best hope is to wait until they decide to hit us again somewhere...and catch them then."

  "Would they be stupid enough to attack us after losing their base?"

  "They could have other bases out there," Nagumo saidk sharply. "I would. Most important, though, they have to attack us, or they don't have a rebellion. A ragged band of half-starved, half-armed rabble squatting out in the jungle is not a rebellion! Not when we control the cities, the spaceports, the farms, the factories— everything, in fact, of any importance at all on Verthandi!

  "No, we keep vigilant. We should increase our air patrols over the sea, I think, and maintain an especially close satellite watch on the jungle between Regis and the Azure Coast. By the time Duke Ricol gets here, we'll either be able to report Verthandi secure, except for these bandits out in the wilderness...or we'll have met them on our ground...and beaten them!"

  25

  Lying between the jungle and the endless sea, Westlee was a fishing village of centuries-old stucco huts and houses jumbled together along winding streets. From the heights above the town, the sea was a spectacular sight, haze-shrouded beneath an overcast sky, but struck to fire by Norn's red-gold rays slanting through the clouds. Rock cliffs dominated the far side of the bay, sheer walls cloven by the gash that was the opening to Ostafjord. Farther out, half-hidden in grey mist and fiery gold was an island of black rock. It heaved skyward through the fog, its bulk casting sharp-edged shadows through the low-lying mists to the west.

  Tiny beneath the mass of the fjord headland, unnoticed in skyfire and fog, the Phobos rested in the shadow of rock, grounded on a shallow beach and draped with unkempt tatters of canvas and camouflaged netting. Above the village, a solitary Stinger stood watch. After coded electronic passwords were challenged and exchanged, Grayson's Shadow Hawk stepped from a jungle logging trail into the moming sunlight.

  The long march was over. The rebel column had travelled on the day after the skirmish near Fox Island, stopped briefly to rest and to jury-rig repairs on several of the nearly disintegrated AgroMechs, then pressed on into the night The night march was necessary because Grayson knew their only hope was to put more distance between the rebel column and the enemy than the enemy believed possible.

  The distance from Fox Island to Westlee was perhaps six hundred kilometers, but by way of the twisting roads and jungle paths, the distance actually travelled was more like a thousand Limited by the lurching pace of the heavier AgroMechs, the column's top speed was something less than 60 kph. There were also frequent stops to repair minor failures in overheated circuits and stress-worn actuators or to give overheated cooling systems a chance to recycle.

  The flesh-and-blood elements of the column were proving to be even weaker and more vulnerable to the strain than were the machines. Four apprentice pilots had passed out when the insufficient cooling systems of their AgroMechs failed, and it had taken time to revive them. Two PickerMechs had failed to complete the journey at all, and three hover transports had to be abandoned when their overworked turbofans simply gave out, with no way to repair them in the jungle. The remaining transports had been claustrophobically crowded after that. Even then, the fourteen-hour-long Verthandian night had not been enough to complete the march in darkness. They arrived at Westlee four hours past dawn, dirty and exhausted, their morale utterly crushed.

  "Well, what the hell do we do now?" Use Martinez said at the staff meeting Grayson had called upon arrival. It was the question on all their minds, of course, and Grayson was glad that someone else had spoken it aloud. They were seated in the lounge of the Phobos to discuss that very matter.

  Save for Jaleg Yorulis, all his Mech pilots were there. Earlier that day, they had buried the young Lyran ‘MechWarrior in an unmarked grave up the beach. Sergeant Ramage was present as well, representing both the mercenary support troops and the rebel infantry, and Grayson had invited two of the oldest Verthandi Ranger Mech Warriors, Rolf Montido and Collin Dace, as representatives of their people.

  "We go on," Grayson said in response to Martinez. "We organize what we have left...and go on."

  What we have left. The only thing that kept the destruction of the Fox Island camp from being a total disaster was that the ‘Mechs and most of the rebel army had escaped. So much had been lost, though. All their support facilities and equipment, except for what the Phobos carried aboard. Fifteen of the Legion's Techs were lost, dead or marched off to captivity. That included both Tomlinson and Karelian, two of their best. All of the Verthandian astechs were dead or captured, as well as the rebel army's own Techs. And, of course, they had all lost friends, comrades with whom they had grown close in the past weeks.

  The Revolutionary Council was gone as well, whether killed or captured. The Council was the whole reason for the Gray Death's presence on Verthandi in the first place. It was their paymaster, patron, and client.

  Grayson leaned far back in his chair, with hands pressed flat over his eyes. He had changed into a uniform, but only because Yorulis' blood had so soaked the shorts and light mesh shirt he'd been wearing. Though he'd managed a fast shower before the meeting, he still felt coated with sweat, stench, and jungle mud.

  "What's the condition of the ship?" he asked Use.

  Clay was immaculate in his trim green and brown Roughriders uniform, but most of the others looked as dirty as Grayson still felt. Lori wore the same shorts and top that she'd made the march in, though she had taken a quick splash in the ocean surf to cool off. The rigors of the previous night showed, too, in the haggardness of their expressions and their dark-circled eyes. Each had had a meal and a couple of hours' sleep, but it would take more than that to erase the strain of the night's long march. Khaled, Martinez, and the others who had remained with Phobos looked fresh and well-rested by comparison.

  "The ship," Martinez said patiently, "is not going anywhere until she gets a refit. Her number three tube is cracked and her primary heat exchangers are shot. The fusion pile needs flushing and relining, and the magnetic superconductors in the plasma bottle charge directors need replacement But that stuff is hot...and I mean hot...and I'm not about to try any of that this side of a space dock! We barely made it here as a steamboat. We're not going to be a spacecraft again for a long time yet."

  "You've checked the foundries of machine shops or whatever is available in Westlee." It was a statement, not a question. Grayson knew that the resourceful DropShip pilot would have tracked down all possible sources of spare parts and repair materials.

  Use answered with a sour expression and a downturned thumb. "We could manage temporary repairs—enough to get us back to the jump point—with a lot of work and the facilities of the Regisport ship bays. Maybe."

  "Then we're stuck here," Debrowski said. Regisport, ten kilometers north of Regis itself, was heavily garrisoned, for it was the groundside link with the Kurita forces' own space supply lines. "We won't be able to make our rendezvous with Captain Tor."

  "We knew that right along," Grayson said. His mind raced. He'd been considering their options all during the trek through the jungle. If they were to run for it, simply give up their Verthandian commitment and make a run for it, there was one chance...

  "The invidious is due back in-system in another 120 hours...make it four local days," he said. "Our only hope if we wanted to leave with her would be to capture a Kurita DropShip and run the blockade."

  Clay's eyes narrowed. "Could we do that?"

  The silence in the conference room thickened perceptibly as Grayson considered his answer. "Yes," he said at last. "Nagumo doesn't know when our starship is due back in system. He doesn't know it is due back. We could plan a raid, capture a DropShip at Regisport, and high-tail it to the jump point before he could get organized. Yes, I believe we could pull it off."

  McCall smiled through the grease on his face. "Aye, there's tha', but we ca' nae leavit tha' indigs in tha' lurch, noo, can we?"

/>   Grayson glanced at Montido and Dace. "Indig" was generally received as a condescending or even hostile word on most worlds, but both Verthandians seemed inclined to let it pass. Perhaps they reasoned that McCall was as tired as the rest of them and not thinking clearly. Or perhaps they hadn't been able to follow his accented speech.

  "I'd like to know what our contract says about all this," Lori said. "Our agreement was with the Revolutionary Council. Looks to me like we don't have any employers now."

  Montido stirred. "May I speak, Captain?"

  "Of course. It's why we asked you here."

  He glanced at Dace, then looked down at the table. "I think I speak for...for what's left of the Verthandi Rangers when I say that we need you. More than ever, we need you."

  "God knows how we could pay you, though," Dace added.

  "Right. If...if you want to go, get offplanet...we'll help you capture the ship, but that will be the end of us. There's no way we can keep fighting on our own. Not now."

  Grayson shook his head slowly. "There are other things at stake besides money" he said. It was surprising how his own thoughts were falling into line as he discussed the matter with the others. How can we abandon them now? "The thought of stealing a Kurita DropShip is tempting, but I'd have to live with myself as well."

  Debrowski stirred, frowning. "Sir...we can't still hope to beat them..."

  "Why not?”

  "Captain, look! It's still just us...well, us and the rebels, sir... against a regiment of ‘Mechs and God knows how many troops! We can't hope to win against an army like that!"

  Grayson looked in turn at each of the others. "A military unit cannot be run as a democracy... but all must at least have some voice in this decision." He looked at Montido and Dace. "Would you gentlemen excuse us for a moment?"

  When the Verthandians had left the room, Grayson continued. "I think a show of hands is sufficient. Who wants to stay and help these folks?"

 

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